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If the Steelers can't find another playmaking LB to play along side Timmons, you may get your wish.

The 4-3 needs to happen. Our LB depth and talent is too thin to effectively put four eliete LBs on the field like LeBeau's 3-4 needs to be successful. There is a reason we are getting less and less sacks. It is because the LBs have to get them in this defense and we don't have those LBs anymore. Foote and Harrison both could be gone this off season. While Worilds would be the obvious Harrison replacement, there is no one to replace Foote at ILB. We can't draft 2 or 3 top LBs so we would likely get journeyman back ups who won't contribute squat if we have injuries next season. Do we even need to discuss the "vanishing" Lamar Woodley?

Now is the time to switch to the 4-3. We have a good base of talent on the DL...more so than at LB. Play to that strength and don't stay with the same thing because of who the Def Coord is. LeBeau is a "genius" so therefore he should be able to adjust and if he can't then move on to someone else.

Playing Fantasy Football does not qualify you to be the in the front office or on the coaching staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers. They are professionals and you are not!

Eight losses. Lowest sack total in decades from a defense supposedly predicated on pressuring the QB. Lowest INT totals in decades. You call this working?

See below from a Prisuta article which hits the nail on the head:

What the Steelers got from their defense this season wasn’t dominating. They don’t sack the quarterback like they used to and they don’t collect turnovers like they used to and fourth-quarter leads are no longer a sure thing.
But that said, this remains a defense you can win with, given a corresponding level of support from the other two platoons. The demise of James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley as an outside pass-rushing tandem is problematic, as is the barely-perceptible development up front of former No. 1 picks Ziggy Hood and Cam Heyward.

This is not the defense it use to be because they have the wrong type of players being forced to play a scheme that doesn't maximize their skill sets. So what do we do? Wait several years to get the right players or change the defense to best fit the players?

What do you want? A dominat defense or one "that can win" if everything else goes right?

Last edited by Oviedo; 12-31-2012 at 09:28 AM.

Playing Fantasy Football does not qualify you to be the in the front office or on the coaching staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers. They are professionals and you are not!

Eight losses. Lowest sack total in decades from a defense supposedly predicated on pressuring the QB. Lowest INT totals in decades. You call this working?

Whether any of us call it working or not, this is a top-10 scoring D that played some of it's best ball the last few weeks. From behind our keyboards we could suggest all kinds of things, but the men who would make such a decision in the really real world wouldn't tinker with a successful unit so quickly.

You need at least 8 good lineman to play a 4-3. You need a bunch of tackles and ends and you need to rotate them. Ziggy Hood played in passing situations all year and got almost no pressure. McClendon cannot stop the run. Heyward got some pressure but also struggles against the run. Keisel is not a great fit for a 4-3 - not really a tackle and not the force you need coming off the edge. Why we would change a defense that was laregely successful to highlight the weakest players on the field is beyond me.

Eight losses. Lowest sack total in decades from a defense supposedly predicated on pressuring the QB. Lowest INT totals in decades. You call this working?

See below from a Prisuta article which hits the nail on the head:

This is not the defense it use to be because they have the wrong type of players being forced to play a scheme that doesn't maximize their skill sets. So what do we do? Wait several years to get the right players or change the defense to best fit the players?

What do you want? A dominat defense or one "that can win" if everything else goes right?

It wasn't players forced to play a scheme that doesn't maximize their skill sets...it was injuries to our starters coupled with poor execution by the young players forced into the lineup...